ABSTRACT
Contemporary Western calligraphy is an artistic trace-making practice concerned with the manual inscription of graphic signs and shapes taken from the Latin alphabet: letters or fragments of it, numbers and punctuation marks, not necessarily combined into words or sentences. All calligraphic artworks—from the most 'formal' to the most 'abstract'" ones, from average-sized works on paper to enlarged screen projections—indeed share one fundamental aspect: a material interrelation that involves a manual movement, an implement and a support. Even though calligraphic drippings can use similar ligature constructions as the ones found in the history of writing, the material approach of the alphabetical continuity is completely different. So where does the difference lie? The lightgraff image could be qualified as a 'text mode' included in an 'image mode'. Text mode and image mode are two different ways of handling and processing the visible alphabetic information.
